Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

If Apple is the only organisation defending our privacy, it is time to worry

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 205 posts

Re: If Apple is the only organisation defending our privacy, it is time to worry

#11

Post by harry8 »

https://mobile.twitter.com/antoniogm

That guy was just fired by apple after a staff revolt described as "woke" which made news.

Separate to that, his alumn is facebook, specifically ads. Whatever spin they put on it he was literally hired to monetize for apple the private data they hold that belongs to you. There is zero contractual it enforceable commitment by Apple to prevent them from stealing and doing literally anything they like with your data for a reason. They will do it the instant it is worth the reputational hit for officially announcing their privacy marketing is knowingly dishonest. Which it is.

If they had any value at all on your privacy it would have contractual protection. Cannot be sold, cannot be provided to a third party without being legal compelled, cannot be used by Apple. It's easy to do this and they have chosen not to. It would cost dramatically less than their "these things are private" ad campaign. Orders of magnitude less. It would get orders of magnitude more reach than their ad campaign. They don't have this in contact for a reason. That reason is bait and switch. Their advertising overtures to privacy are worth even less than Google's lack of them. Apple are utterly foul.

The bar is so unbelievably low and apple, google, facebook, and all their ilk compete to get deeper below it and bash us harder.

It's our fault. We didn't do... Like they commanded. See what we made then do?

/Waves to apple zealots and gravy train riders.

Re: If Apple is the only organisation defending our privacy, it is time to worry

#12

Post by fshbbdssbbgdd »

haram_masala wrote: post #5
dheera wrote: post #2

I know HN will downvote the hell out of people who doubt Apple, but Apple is most certainly not defending any privacy with their closed-source OS. For one, it takes quite a bit more on an iOS device to jailbreak it and use an MITM proxy to inspect what apps are doing under the hood than it does for an Android device to do the same. I feel much more peace of mind that I know exactly what apps are sending to their serv…

True, it’s very difficult to see what iOS apps and iOS itself are doing. And we can assume that third-party apps are collecting whatever info they can - even after 14.5, when they presumably disclose what they’re collecting. But, can’t we infer from Apple’s earning statements how much they’re monetizing user data? Currently that seems like not much. Then again, they probably wouldn’t have recruited Antonio Garcia if…

The Journal says Apple’s ads business is estimated at $2 billion currently (but this isn’t reported in their financial statements): https://www.wsj.com/articles/apples-privacy-changes-are-pois...

Apple’s services category made $16 billion in revenue last quarter and includes ads in addition to other businesses like music and TV. Apple’s growth story to investors hinges on the services category.

Re: If Apple is the only organisation defending our privacy, it is time to worry

#13

Post by gordon_freeman »

zelon88 wrote: post #10

The author gives Apple credit for solving a problem Apple created. Apple doesn't care about protecting you. They care about protecting their own advertising market share. They don't want to stop tracking your iPhone. They want competitors like Google to stop tracking your iPhone (for free). Apple wants to get paid for that. If Apple cared about you then tracking functionality would not exist.

You didn't get it. Apple is not making any decisions on whether to allow apps to track or not. They are simply delegating that choice to their users (and rightly so). The user has power to chose which advertisers he or she can trust showing them the useful ads and allow those apps to track. If ads are not useful or are exploitative of their data then they can chose not to allow tracking. As simple as that.

Re: If Apple is the only organisation defending our privacy, it is time to worry

#14

Post by newscracker »

dheera wrote: post #2

I know HN will downvote the hell out of people who doubt Apple, but Apple is most certainly not defending any privacy with their closed-source OS. For one, it takes quite a bit more on an iOS device to jailbreak it and use an MITM proxy to inspect what apps are doing under the hood than it does for an Android device to do the same. I feel much more peace of mind that I know exactly what apps are sending to their serv…

I’m a bit lost here. If all you want is to do MITM, what stops you from installing a certificate and a “VPN profile” on the iOS device and proxying the communication for analysis with appropriate apps? You don’t need to jailbreak to do any of this, as Charles Proxy for iOS (paid app) [1] shows.

Of course, if you need to do more than intercepting network traffic, then it gets a bit more cumbersome on iOS.

[1]: https://www.charlesproxy.com/documentation/ios/

Re: If Apple is the only organisation defending our privacy, it is time to worry

#15

Post by [deleted] »

null_object wrote: post #8
dheera wrote: post #2

I know HN will downvote the hell out of people who doubt Apple, but Apple is most certainly not defending any privacy with their closed-source OS. For one, it takes quite a bit more on an iOS device to jailbreak it and use an MITM proxy to inspect what apps are doing under the hood than it does for an Android device to do the same. I feel much more peace of mind that I know exactly what apps are sending to their serv…

> just denying them permissions, which in many cases just cause apps to refuse to function. Factual question: which apps in your experience "refuse to function" when you deny them permission to track you?

[deleted]

Re: If Apple is the only organisation defending our privacy, it is time to worry

#16

Post by dialtone »

gordon_freeman wrote: post #13
zelon88 wrote: post #10

The author gives Apple credit for solving a problem Apple created. Apple doesn't care about protecting you. They care about protecting their own advertising market share. They don't want to stop tracking your iPhone. They want competitors like Google to stop tracking your iPhone (for free). Apple wants to get paid for that. If Apple cared about you then tracking functionality would not exist.

You didn't get it. Apple is not making any decisions on whether to allow apps to track or not. They are simply delegating that choice to their users (and rightly so). The user has power to chose which advertisers he or she can trust showing them the useful ads and allow those apps to track. If ads are not useful or are exploitative of their data then they can chose not to allow tracking. As simple as that.

Except Apple is putting its own ability to track you under a different opt-out (default opted-in) that isn't set when you first launch the iphone.

Re: If Apple is the only organisation defending our privacy, it is time to worry

#17

Post by Synaesthesia »

There's still a huge elephant in the room. How are we supposed to trust Apple, Microsoft or any other tech company when it emerged that they fully cooperated with the NSA and their PRISM program.

We have to just assume that's still running. Businesses could keep a lot of secrets from us and they're not transparent or accountable to the public.

Re: If Apple is the only organisation defending our privacy, it is time to worry

#18

Post by newscracker »

null_object wrote: post #8
dheera wrote: post #2

I know HN will downvote the hell out of people who doubt Apple, but Apple is most certainly not defending any privacy with their closed-source OS. For one, it takes quite a bit more on an iOS device to jailbreak it and use an MITM proxy to inspect what apps are doing under the hood than it does for an Android device to do the same. I feel much more peace of mind that I know exactly what apps are sending to their serv…

> just denying them permissions, which in many cases just cause apps to refuse to function. Factual question: which apps in your experience "refuse to function" when you deny them permission to track you?

That’s a hold out from the Android world, where apps are generally written to expect the user to provide requested permissions. Before Android 6, apps would get all permissions requested for on installation (or the user wouldn’t be able to install the app). From Android 6, when the permission model changed to be similar to iOS to get it at runtime, apps didn’t get written for this new world and would crash or refuse to work. Even today, there are apps that will refuse to function if some (non-critical) permission is not granted.

Re: If Apple is the only organisation defending our privacy, it is time to worry

#19

Post by dheera »

newscracker wrote: post #14
dheera wrote: post #2

I know HN will downvote the hell out of people who doubt Apple, but Apple is most certainly not defending any privacy with their closed-source OS. For one, it takes quite a bit more on an iOS device to jailbreak it and use an MITM proxy to inspect what apps are doing under the hood than it does for an Android device to do the same. I feel much more peace of mind that I know exactly what apps are sending to their serv…

I’m a bit lost here. If all you want is to do MITM, what stops you from installing a certificate and a “VPN profile” on the iOS device and proxying the communication for analysis with appropriate apps? You don’t need to jailbreak to do any of this, as Charles Proxy for iOS (paid app) [1] shows. Of course, if you need to do more than intercepting network traffic, then it gets a bit more cumbersome on iOS. [1]: https:/…

Most apps now use certificate pinning, i.e. they have the root certificate included in the app and signed as part of the app, so that method won't work.

On Android it's much easier to intercept and modify the behavior of apps and tell the system to disregard signatures and things of the sort.

Re: If Apple is the only organisation defending our privacy, it is time to worry

#20

Post by xvector »

unreal37 wrote: post #6

Apple is in it for themselves too. Stop falling for this.

Obviously. But just because Apple is in it for themselves doesn’t mean that their customers can’t also benefit. Clearly, it’s mutually beneficial - customers get privacy-focused devices, and Apple gets money from people that care about privacy.

All that said, the level of privacy Apple offers in any of its devices is superficial at best. There are way more problems Apple needs to solve before any of its devices can be considered “private.”

Your IP still gives away your location, apps can remember if they were installed on your phone, you can’t turn off network or sensors for individual apps, etc.

Post reply on HN